Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi all,

I am new to shell scripting.
I have dbf file and I need to convert it into csv file.
OR, can i read the fields from a .dbf file and OR seprate the records in dbf file and put into .csv or txt.
Actually in the .dbf files I am getting , the numbers of fields may vary in very record and hence no of columns in the records is not fixed,,,but there is a mandatory field Name_area and rest are optionals , so is there a way to fix the end of record in a .dbf file while reading it through shell script code.

i cant use PERL or Python scripts ,I have to use korn shell scripts..

Your help will be highly appreciated..
u can respond or mail me at email removed.

Thanks in Advance...

.dbf is a generic for Database File. What database engine are you running? If these are not flat files you will need a program to do the conversion to .csv.

hey thanks methyl for your response.....

.dbf, I am getting from upstream system...so i dont know what database engine they are using ...we just recover this file ....
I have to read some information from this dbf file(NAME_AREA field basically)...and then put it into some csv file...OR alltogether convert this dbf file into csv
is it possible with programming ( korn shell scripting or UNIX c)
ar any other free library etc which can be used......

I know that this can be easily done in Windows environment..but we are using HP UNIX and shell, c programming environment.

Your any help regarding it will be highly appreciated......

Ths is a non-starter without knowing what software wrote the file and in what format. Can you get the file converted at source?

can I send u the file ?? ..may be u get some clue...as I dont hve idea abt databases so I have never dealt with diff. file formats and all.....
is thr a way to send u this file..!!!!!

Sorry cannot oblige. An isolated .dbf file is unlikely to be useful without the matching software.

ok...neways ..thanx methyl..